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“Can we have a cat?”
“No, honey, we can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because your mom doesn’t want any animals in the house.”
“...”
Alyosha kept begging to adopt a pet since she was a little child, she remembered it very well. She loved all animals, but she felt a particularly special connection to cats. They were just like her - wary of people, not too keen on physical contact, preferring to spend time alone minding their own business.
But her mothers didn’t want a cat, at least Adelaida didn’t. She wasn’t a fan of animals in general; she considered them to be too messy and annoying. It wasn’t fair.
One day though, Ivan brought a cat into the house, completely unprompted. No warnings, no anticipation - he just arrived at the house with a white persian cat in his arms, happily claiming that Polina (that’s how he named the cat) is now their new family member. Alyosha was overjoyed, their mothers though - not so much. Adelaida then proceeded to tell Ivan off on how it’s irresponsible to bring an animal into the house without previously telling anyone while he made some snarky remarks on how Mitya was allowed to keep insects in his room and how it was double standards. After that, they didn’t speak to each other for a solid week.
What was interesting though is that despite her anti-animal attitude, Adelaida instantly became best friends with Polina. In fact, the whole family was in love with that cat - Pavel let her spend time with him in the kitchen, Sofia held her on her knees during any movie night and Lizaveta and Mitya took her on walks. The only person that didn’t feel too positively about Polina - mutually - was Alyosha.
Now, it’s important to note that she tried her best to befriend that cat, but Polina absolutely despised her. Why? God knows. She refused to even be in Alyosha’s presence, let alone let her interact with her in any way. It was unfair. Why was she the only one Polina disliked? She didn’t do anything to her. She was patient and gentle, yet the cat didn’t seem to change her mind about the youngest Karamazov sibling.
“Can we have a cat?”
“We already have a cat.”
“But that cat absolutely hates me.”
“I think you might be overreacting a little, sweetie.”
“Can we please have another cat?”
“No. One is more than enough.”
“...”
At least now that she was attending university she didn’t have much time to think about the family pet’s feelings about her. It was a relief, frankly - one less emotional burden troubling her. Of course, it was still there, she just shoved it deep enough to not care about it at that moment though.
She was making her way through the forest, the bag with her notebooks on her shoulder. She figured out this route quite recently, and she noticed it was a quicker and healthier way of reaching the university building than the route through the city centre. She walked through the bridge undisturbed, until…
‘Meow?’ a quiet voice emerged from between the trees. It was the saddest meow Alyosha has ever heard.
‘Hello?’ she called out, in hope the kitten would come out.
‘Meow…’ A small, orange cat sat in the grass, a few metres away from her.
‘Hi there, little fella! You’re such a cute little guy!’ she couldn’t help but smile in awe. It was the cutest cat she’s ever seen. ‘Do you need anything?’
‘Meow…’ the cat meowed once again, as if it was begging for something.
‘Are you hungry?’ She took out a sandwich out of her bag and took out a piece of ham out of it. She didn’t like meat anyway. ‘Here, it’s not much but it’s still something.’ she smiled slightly at the cat. She knew the cat was too scared to approach when she was still present, so she decided to walk away, continuing with her journey.
At first, she thought of it as more of a “one time encounter”. To her surprise though, the cat seemed to like her, or at least considered her worthy enough of being a food source. Either way, she kept seeing that cat every day that week, in the same place, at the same time. It still was wary enough that it didn’t dare to approach her, but it seemed like the cat didn’t mind her presence. At some point alyosha started carrying small bags of cat food, just so she could give her orange friend food that actually was good for it on her way to school.
Despite having no classes on the weekend, she still came to the forest to visit the cat and feed it. It kind of became her responsibility now - she knew that could happen the very moment she decided to give the cat the first piece of ham. This time though, the cat didn’t just watch from the distance; first, it gave her a slow blink (a sign of trust), then slowly, it walked out of its usual sitting spot - Alyosha noticed it was missing one of its front legs - and carefully approached her, sitting down on the road right next to her feet.
Alyosha smiled to herself - that cat was really adorable! She squatted right next to her friend and gently stuck out her hand to it, letting it sniff it. The kitty seemed confused at first, but then it pushed its face against her hand, indicating it wanted to be pet. Alyosha, of course, immediately fulfilled that request, lovingly drowning the animal in head scratches. It felt really nice - Polina, for instance, rarely let her pet her. Feeling a cat’s fur against her hand was soothing. And the cat seemed to really like her, too! Maybe she could start hanging around with it more often.
Turns out the cat might’ve taken that “hanging around more often” too seriously. After a whole weekend of spending time with it, the cat didn’t seem to stop doing it just because she had other responsibilities. It started following her around to the university, waiting under the building for her to get off, then walking back home with her, rinse and repeat. True, it was adorable, but it also made Alyosha very concerned for the cat’s wellbeing. What if something happened to it while it was waiting for her to finish her classes? What if it got hit by a car or something? Ideally, she would just take the cat home but she knew that was literally the last thing everyone in her household wanted.
…Or was it?
What if she did take it home, but kept it in her bedroom only so it wouldn’t bother anyone? That sounded like a good idea. If her mothers didn’t know she had a cat, it wouldn’t be a problem, right? She seemed to be the only person caring about that cat’s wellbeing, it didn’t have a collar or anything like this either, so she could pretty much adopt it. Even if someone found out about the kitty, she’d defend herself by saying her brothers already had pet animals, so why couldn’t she? Ivan already pulled it off, maybe it would work for her too.
‘Hey there, little kitty!’ Alyosha picked up her three-pawed friend from the sidewalk. ‘What would you say to getting a new home? You know, so you don’t have to sleep outside all the time? That way, we could spend more time together!’
It’s not like the cat understood any of what she said, but it seemed happy that Alyosha held her.
‘Meow,’ it bumped its head against her arm. Guess that it was a yes!
‘I… thought you weren’t allowed to have a cat?’ said Kolya, carefully observing an orange animal playing with a teddy bear in Alyosha’s room.
‘Oh, I’m not!’ she laughed, ‘That’s why I’m keeping him a secret from my family. His name is Garfield, by the way.’
‘Right… Isn’t that a little… against the rules, though?’
‘Kind of, I guess? I mean, I couldn’t just leave him living in the wild, could I? This guy has become so clingy I actually started worrying something bad is going to happen to him without me.’
Yes, that was very Alyosha-like. Constantly caring about the others, not caring about the rules if she gets to help someone in need. Kolya couldn’t help but be concerned though, he knew her mothers were very rough when Polina first was brought in, and they could be even harsher to Alyosha, now that it’s already happened before.
‘Couldn’t you try finding someone who actually is allowed to keep a cat in their house? You could’ve just printed an announcement and hung it up all over the town, surely someone would have finally adopted the cat.’
‘I don’t want to give him away though,’ she reached out to pet the kitty. ‘He’s my friend, nobody would understand him the way I do.
The younger boy sighed. He knew he wouldn’t be able to convince her to do anything, so he didn’t even bother to try.
What he tried, though, was mentioning it to Alyosha’s brother.
‘A little birdie told me we have a new pet,’ said Pavel nonchalantly, as he was sweeping the kitchen.
Alyosha froze.
‘We do?’ she asked nervously.
‘If the cat that lives in your bedroom - Garfield is his name, if I remember correctly - is an animal, then yes, we do.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘Ilyusha said something about you keeping a cat there. Also, I happened to drop your laundry off and was greeted by that orange fella, he seems rather fun.’
Alyosha took a deep breath. Yeah, he could’ve expected that. Kolya passes on the news to his boyfriend Ilyusha, who then passes them on to Pavel. These damn gossips, right?
‘Just don’t tell mums, alright? I’m gonna be in a lot of trouble if they find out I’m keeping an excess cat here.’
‘I wasn’t planning on that, you know. It’s not like I’m a snitch, unlike some people ,’ he dramatically rolled his eyes, leaning on the broom. Alyosha giggled. ‘Just try keeping him healthy and clean. I’m not too keen on cats, but he could spend time in my room, if you want.’
A small smile appeared on her face. Some brotherly alliance was exactly what she needed. Especially from Pavel, who generally had a reputation of… not being the nicest to cats, to say the least. In fact, when he was a child he had some… unpleasant, hm, incidents with these animals which didn’t exactly end well for them. By now, Pavel has grown out of that cruelty, but the rather hostile approach to cats remained. It was some kind of a miracle that Polina managed to win his heart, and now he seemed to not mind Garfiend’s existence. What great progress!
Soon, the other two of the brothers also happened to stumble upon Alyosha’s new roommate, and thus a secret alliance was formed. All four brothers worked in unison, taking care of the three-pawed pet while simultaneously keeping him a secret from their mothers. At first, she was scared her brothers would be mad at her for breaking the rules and bringing another pet into the household. Instead though, they seemed to be absolutely enamoured with Garfield, especially Ivan, who couldn’t wait to introduce him to Polina. He claimed that now she had another cat to play with, both animals would be happier. And so, Polina started spending more time with both her orange peer and Alyosha. It seemed like she slowly stopped being hostile towards her, too! That was a great achievement, noting how she used to despise her for such a long time.
When their mothers were gone, both cats were allowed to free-roam around the house, playing together and causing shenanigans. After the playtime was over, Garfield was carefully transported into one of the brothers’ rooms. Though, it seemed like the newcomer got so used to spending time wherever he wanted, being trapped within the four walls of a singular small room slowly stopped being enough for him; overtime, it got significantly harder to make him not go outside Alyosha’s bedroom - sometimes she felt like he was going to figure out how to break out any moment and their cover will be blown.
Despite the great efforts to keep Garfield a secret, the whole game of pretend ended (quite unexpectedly, to be frank), when, to the brothers’ surprise, Sofia came back home from work early. Now, out of all the people in the household she was literally the least likely to finish work earlier, quite the opposite - she was usually the one to work long shifts and stay at work until dusk. Just imagine Alyosha’s panic when she saw her mother’s faint silhouette in the kitchen window, then she heard the front door open and the next thing she knew was Sofia standing in the hall, face to face with Garfield, not quite understanding what was happening. She looked at the cat with what seemed to be a mix of confusion and relief.
‘That’s it, I give up,’ she said, picking the cat up and scratching his head as he began purring; a smile appeared on her face.
‘You give up… what?’ Alyosha asked nervously, not daring to look her mother in the eyes.
‘I give up pretending that I don’t know this cat is here.’
The youngest leaned onto the wall. What?
‘Wait, I… don’t quite understand.’
‘Oh, honey, you’re horrible at keeping secret pets,’ her mother laughed slightly, ‘It was literally the first thing we noticed the day after you brought him there. He was tirelessly meowing, I didn’t sleep at all that night. Also, I saw his head peeking out of your bag when you were leaving the house. By the way, I don’t think bringing animals to university is the best idea. Either way, you seemed so invested in keeping him a secret from us that your other mothers and I decided to play along with it. It was kind of fun, you know?’ she giggled.
Alyosha didn’t seem to find it funny at all though, in fact, she felt incredibly embarrassed. She felt her whole face turning red, great .
‘But now that you know we’ve been only pretending,’ Sofia continued, ‘there’s no need to hide your cat away. I think Adelaida can bear living with two animals under her roof.’
She put Garfield down and patted Alyosha’s cheek gently. It felt nice to experience some motherly warmth.
‘Yes, I guess so. Sorry for adopting a cat even though you told me not to.’
‘Oh, don’t worry about it. I also thought that whole “no pets allowed” rule was stupid.’ She gave her a pat on the head, resulting in Alyosha breaking out a laugh.
Everyone breathed out with relief as operation “Keep Garfield a Secret From Mums” finally ended. Now, Alyosha’s three-pawed friend officially became a part of their big, chaotic family. And, on a related note, Polina seemed to finally stop holding a grudge against Alyosha. Whew!
“Now that we have two cats, what would you say for getting something more exotic, like a parrot, maybe?”
“Alyosha…”
“Hey, I’m just kidding!”